MOBILE LEARNING EFL
PROJECT
By Ana Paula Cypriano !
Moderators: Ana Maria Menezes Jennifer Verschoor ! !
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April/2014
PROJECT: ROMEO AND JULIET !
! ! Type of mLearning: Language, literature,and technology!
! Project goals: This project has 3 goals: ! a) To introduce Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet to students.! b) To provide students with opportunities to learn new lexical items as well as grammatical structures and reading strategies.! c) To raise students’ awareness that technology can be used as a useful pedagogical tool.!
! Target audience: This project will be implemented in 5 classes whose students are in either the 8th or 9th grade.!
! Type of technology and infrastructure: Students are expected to bring their own smartphones. However, if need be, 5 netbooks will be available in class for the students. ! All the devices should have wi-fi technology so that students can work online using the school’s router.! The participants will be requested to: 1) download files from OneDrive; 2) participate in chats on Facebook or Whatsapp groups; 3) answer questions on surveymonkey.com; 4) create a collaborative glossary using googledocs; 5) share ideas, videos and participate in discussions using linoit.com; and, 6) rewrite the end of the story using either Make Beliefs Comix or Animoto.!
The stakeholders: The school director and parents might influence the project throughout its implementation.!
! Timeline for developing the project: 2 months!
! Description of the project: All the 8th and 9th graders are reading an abridged version of one of Shakespeare’s plays in Portuguese. They can choose one of the following plays: Romeo and Juliet; The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer night’s dream, Hamlet, Macbeth and Othello. And as Shakespeare’s 450th birthday is celebrated this year, the Portuguese and English teachers will work together to implement an interdisciplinary project.!
! After joining the project, I talked to students and found out most of them liked Romeo and Juliet. Therefore, I searched for abridged versions of the aforementioned play which should not be written in a complex way. Having found a copy of Romeo and Juliet, allowed me to devise all the stages of the project as far as teaching English as a Foreign Language is concerned.!
! The project will last 8 weeks which will be divided as following:! WEEK 1 - The English teacher will create a closed group on Facebook for each 8th or 9th grade class. So, a student will be able to ask for help or clarifications whenever he/she wants. It is of paramount importance to highlight that either the English teacher or the student’s peers might give him/her help or clear up his/her doubts.! During the 1st week, students will answer an online survey, on Survey Monkey, which consists of 10 general questions about Shakespeare and
the play Romeo and Juliet, so that students’ schemata will be activated and the context set.! ! WEEK 2 - Students will download the abridged version of Romeo and Juliet; as well as, its audio tracks from onedrive.com. After downloading the files, they will read the first chapter of the book and listen to its recording.! The learners will be encouraged to use online dictionaries whenever they can not guess or infer the meaning of unknown words or expressions through the context.! Besides, while reading the book, students will create collaboratively a glossary with the unknown lexical items found in Chapter 1. In order to do so, they will be using a spreadsheet uploaded in GoogleDocs and shared with them via Facebook. The spreadsheet will have 5 worksheets; one for each chapter. Moreover, each worksheet will be divided into 4 columns (1.Word; 2. Example; 3. Meaning; and, 4. Page). Every single student will be able to edit any piece of information provided in the spreadsheet. ! To ensure students have the correct meaning, the English teacher will have to supervise and moderate this piece of collaborative work.!
! WEEK 3 - During the 3rd week, students will read Chapter 2 of Romeo and Juliet, listen to its recording and complete collaboratively the glossary for Chapter 2 at docs.google.com. Besides, they will write a post about what struck them the most in the first two chapters and why on linoit. Last but not least, learners will be encouraged to reflect and comment on each other’s post on linoit. !
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WEEK 4 - On week 4, students will read Chapter 3 of Romeo and Juliet, listen to its recording and complete collaboratively the glossary for Chapter 3 at docs.google.com. Students will take part in a discussion on linoit in order to draw a parallel between Romeo and Juliet’s situation and the teens’ situation nowadays.!
! WEEK 5 - On week 5, students will read Chapter 4 of Romeo and Juliet, listen to its recording and complete collaboratively the glossary for Chapter 4 at docs.google.com. ! Each class will be requested to watch a different version of Romeo and Juliet and contrast the story on the book and the video suggested. Learners will, then, post on linoit the snippet(s) which illustrate(s) the difference(s) found in each film and compare their answers with the others’.!
! WEEK 6 - During the 6th week, students will read Chapter 5 of Romeo and Juliet , listen to its recording and complete collaboratively the glossary for Chapter 5 at docs.google.com. ! Learners will be split into groups of 5 to discuss online, via Facebook or Whatsapp, how they can modify the end of the story.! Students read some examples of rubrics on rubistar.4teachers.org (or any other site in Portuguese which provide examples of rubrics) and collaboratively create their own to evaluate their final task; i.e., to change the end of the story.!
! WEEK 7 - In groups of 5, students rewrite the end of the play. They might use Facebook or Whatsapp to share ideas and discuss. They create their final scenes using either Make Beliefs Comix or Animoto.! The groups post the links of their comic strips or videos on linoit. !
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WEEK 8 - Students answer a survey on the play which will be available online on Survey Monkey. ! Learners’ final scenes of Romeo and Juliet are shown in class, so that students might comment on their peers’ work.! Finally, students reflect on all the stages of the project, its positive aspects, its areas for improvement; as well as, their own participation and their outcomes. Bearing everything in mind, they write an inbox message for the English teachers providing him/her with some feedback about the project.